


The Pit Fighter

by jamwrites



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 20:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6721678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamwrites/pseuds/jamwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Rose's rebellion never crashed Blue Diamond's party? In a combination of episodes "The Answer" and "Jail Break", newly-formed Garnet struggles to survive and to understand who and what she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pit Fighter

She heard the crowd before she saw it. 

Garnet flexed for the thousandth time against her chains, but, like every other attempt, it was to no avail. She was bound head to foot, wrapped so tight that the metal dug into her body like cords of fire. And even if she did manage to escape from her chains, then what? The energy barriers around her weren’t about to break any time soon, and the chariot in which her cage sat was guarded by a squadron of Rubies. 

She was well and truly trapped. 

_ Calm down, Ruby. We’ll get through this.  _

_ How can you say that?  _ There was no way they were going to live to see tomorrow. Were they forgetting that they were a prisoner of Blue Diamond? She had called them an abomination. A creature. Blue Diamond hated them, and for it, they were going to die. 

No. Panicking wasn’t going to do them any good. 

She wasn’t panicking!

Yes, she was. She had to calm down.  _ They  _ had to calm down. They were a team now, or they had to be. That was the only way they were going to get through this. 

_ If you want proof, just look at the future.  _ It was true that what was to come was hazy at best, but there  _ were _ futures where they made it out of this. They were not doomed. 

Garnet felt herself waver. She breathed in. Breathed out. 

Her chariot passed through an archway, and the coliseum opened up before her. 

Gems covered every available seat, almost overflowing from the stands in their number. When Garnet’s chariot arced out into the center of the fighting pit, the crowd roared. Taunts were thrown like rotten organic material, words sharper than knives thrown from every direction. They stabbed through Garnet, piercing her every limb, every part of her pseudo-real body’s skin. Everywhere she looked she saw angry faces. The faces of Gems who wanted her poofed. Shattered. Dead. Garnet began to tremble. 

Her chariot, pulled by nothing, slowed before the opposite end of the stadium. Garnet looked upward. There, close to the pit floor, was a terrace jutting from the stone benches. On the terrace was a trellised enclosure, crawling with blue flowers and ivy. And inside the enclosure was the hooded figure of Blue Diamond herself, hooded in flowing robes that hid her eyes, sitting straight-backed on an ornately carved marble throne. A shock of cold traveled up Garnet’s spine when she looked at the deity. 

“So,” Blue Diamond’s lips barely moved when she spoke, but the entire crowd fell to a hush at her voice. “This is the abomination. The mongrel. The mutt who defies me.” 

_ No, we’re sorry, please- _

_ We’re not sorry.  _

_ Even if it means our lives?  _

It was no use. Garnet had languished in her cell for weeks, and she had gone over this argument thousands of times. Even so, she still couldn’t find the answer.  _ Was _ she wrong?  _ Was _ she a monster? Ruby loved Sapphire, and Sapphire Ruby. They had learned that whilst they rotted in their hole, when all they had to cling to was each other. 

But what if Blue Diamond was right, and their love was...evil?

The goddess raised a hand on which to rest the delicate point of her chin. “Do you have any words, creature? Any final utterances for the crowd to hear before you are destroyed?”

Garnet’s throat was dry. She opened her mouth--and nothing came out.

Blue Diamond smiled the tiniest of smiles. 

“I thought not.” She almost sounded bored. “Bring out the warrior.” 

Garnet’s chariot was wheeled around by the Rubies. Her passageway had been sealed off again by an energy barrier, but now it lifted again to spit up a hulking shadow. The thing stomped forward, into the light…

_ A Jasper. We’re doomed.  _

The bigger gem stomped out from the stone gullet. The crowd roared at the sight of her, but this time it was in approval. Jaspers were favored warriors of Homeworld, adored by many, envied by even more. This one looked especially vicious; she wore immaculate war paint and a feral grin that bared her sharp white teeth. In her hands was a battle-axe with a blade larger than Garnet’s head. 

A shudder passed through Garnet’s body. This was no execution. Her death was going to be sport. A mockery. 

“Break her chains.” 

The command rippled across the arena, and the Ruby guards obeyed. Garnet’s chains were struck in two, her prison sizzled into nothing, and she was yanked from the cart. 

_ No, no, please. Please!  _ She could feel the future stalking her from behind. Coming up to engulf her in its dark talons. There was nothing she could do to stop it. 

The Rubies pushed her hard and Garnet fell to all fours, panting. Why was she breathing so hard? She had to stay calm. She had to stop panicking. 

But it was no use. She stared at her hands. The cool stone kissed her sweaty palms like a goodbye. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to block out the white noise of the crowd. 

She didn’t want to die.

The thought came unbidden. Garnet didn’t want to die. Not here, not now. She needed to figure out what she was, who she was, why she was here. She didn’t want to die. 

“On this day, I, Blue Diamond, have tried this criminal and found it guilty.” Blue Diamond’s voice pounded against the walls of Garnet’s mind.  _ Block her out block her out block her out. Think. Come on, think!  _ If they were going to have any shot at surviving this, they needed to find a way to survive the Jasper.

“On this day, we look the shadow of evil in its face, and spit in it.” Survive the Jasper. Okay. That wasn’t impossible. Every Gem had a weapon. Well, usually just the soldiers, but everyone had  _ something _ to defend themselves with, even Sapphires. So that meant they... _ she _ had to have a weapon too, right? 

Garnet searched deep inside herself. Ruby was the one with more experience summoning a weapon. How did she do it? 

Usually by getting angry. That’s who Ruby was: fire. She just went to the center of herself and pulled something from that place. But Garnet had a feeling that anger wouldn’t work for her. Garnet wasn’t just fire. She wasn’t just one Gem.  

“On this day, I perform justice. I sentence this...thing...to death.” The goddess flicked her finger.

That seemed to be all the signal the Jasper needed. Garnet glanced up just in time to glimpse the larger Gem sprinting towards her, and then a foot connected with her belly and the world went white with pain. The impact carried enough force to lift Garnet off her feet and send her flying through the air, to drive all the air from her lungs. For a brief moment, the world was still.

And then she connected with an arena wall. A sickening crack rang out, but Garnet couldn’t tell if it was the stone or her body breaking. She couldn’t tell anything through the pain coursing through her nerves.  

_ Who are you, Garnet?  _

The Jasper was in front of her now, wrapping a fat fist around her neck and sliding her up the wall. Garnet choked, gasped for air, struggled against the wall of muscle that stood before her. The Jasper grinned at her. 

“You’re nothing, aren’t you?” A helmet materialized on the Gem’s head. “You’re less than dirt.” 

The helmet slammed into Garnet’s head.

She screamed. 

Pain. Pain like she had never felt before. It was the worst thing she could imagine, worse than that, worse than oblivion. She could have died from the shock of it. 

Somewhere far away, someone was laughing. 

And then the helmet came again. 

_ Who...is...Garnet?  _ With each thought, the Jasper headbutted Garnet. Again and again and again. Tears rolled down Garnet’s cheeks. She felt herself thrown through the air again, but her landing was a mercy compared to the other pain. But the hands grabbed her throat again, and a fist connected with her temple. She crumpled to the ground. 

_ I love you, Ruby.  _ Garnet crawled, broken. The Jasper, the god of death, kicked her. 

_ I love you more.  _

The two of them retreated. They pulled away from the nebulus of death and pain and fire that the world had imploded into. They took each others’ hand and walked into themselves, into whatever shred of their minds that Blue Diamond couldn’t touch, down that dark lane of peaceful quiet. 

“We’re going to die here, aren’t we?” Ruby stroked Sapphire’s hair as they collapsed into each other, sinking to the black and featureless ground. 

Sapphire brushed aside her bangs and looked at Ruby with her big, beautiful eye. “I’m sorry. This isn’t the future I wanted.” 

“It’s not the one we deserve, is it?” And she finally understood. Here, at the brink of eternity, Ruby found some glimmer of understanding. She clung to it. It didn’t matter now, but it was all she had. “I just want to have time to love you.” 

“Oh Ruby, we’ve been given time. Just not as much as we would like.” Sapphire laughed a little, but hiccuped, half-choking on her own tears. 

“Laughy Sapphy,” Ruby said absentmindedly. She smiled a small, sad smile. They sat with each other for a while, wrapped in each other’s arms. “Laughy Sapphy.” She would miss saying that.

And then the smile melted off her face. “No.” The words seemed to appear before Ruby could even think of them. “No,” she said again, stronger this time. “No, I don’t accept that. I  _ can’t  _ accept that. I love you, Sapphire! And I want to keep on loving you forever!”

“Ruby--”

“Don’t you see? It’s not what we  _ deserve _ !” Ruby took Sapphire’s shoulders in her hands. She wanted to hear Sapphire laugh again and again. How could that laughter be bad? That laughter was worth saving. That laughter was anything but evil. “Our love isn’t wrong, it isn’t evil. It’s love and it’s ours and it’s pure. That’s all that matters. Blue Diamond is  _ wrong _ .” 

Sapphire blinked. “You’re...you’re right.” She looked over her shoulder, though there was nothing there to see. “Ruby, you’re right!” And then the blue gem laughed. A real laugh this time, not one of fear but of bubbly joy. “That’s it! That’s what we are! That’s what Garnet is!”

“What?” Ruby let herself be pulled to her feet by Sapphire, who twirled her around as best she could. “Sapphire, what do you mean?”

Her girlfriend planted a kiss on Ruby’s cheek, giggling. “We’re  _ love _ , silly.” 

They looked at each other for a moment. Understanding dawned on Ruby, washed over her like a tidal wave. Of course. Why not? What had started when she jumped in front of that sword had grown in that jail cell and now--

“Come on,” Ruby said. “We’re not finished yet. Not if I have anything to say about it.” 

Slowly, slowly, Garnet stitched herself back together. To walk back into the arena hellscape took all the willpower she had, but she forced herself to move outward, only this time, she took something else with her. 

On the ground, Garnet’s hands began to glow. Purple energy wavered around her fingers in a soft nimbus, sparking between her thumbs. There was something, something whistling in her ear, drawing nearer--

_ Move! _

Garnet caught the Jasper’s axe blade in her gauntlet.

“I’m not finished yet,” she said. She squeezed the blade.

It shattered.

The Jasper’s eyes widened in surprise. She took a step back. “What? H-how?”

A smile spread across Garnet’s split lip. She looked down at her new gem weapon: gauntlets. A low laugh rumbled up in her belly. Gauntlets. Okay, she could work with gauntlets. 

Garnet flexed her fingers. They felt powerful. Unstoppable. “I am in love. I  _ am _ love. That’s the answer.” 

Garnet swung her armored hand and connected with the Jasper’s cheek. The hit was a solid one, just like Ruby was used to.  _ Maybe this won’t be so difficult after all.  _ She grinned.

“You’re a  _ creature _ .” The Jasper pushed herself to one knee and spit out a tooth, glaring at Garnet. “And you won’t beat me.” 

Garnet beckoned for her to come closer. 

With a roar, the Jasper launched herself into the air. The other gem was big, but she was fast, too. It hardly mattered. Garnet was faster; she was electric. 

She caught the warrior’s wrists in mid-air and swung her around and around, letting her heels dig into the stone arena floor. Finally, with a grunt, she released her opponent, and the bigger gem collided with one of the arena walls. 

“You...will...die.” The Jasper just kept getting up. Garnet swallowed, clenched her fists. She was love. She was invincible. She could do this. 

The Jasper screamed, and then she was on Garnet, punching, kicking, throwing her weight like a weapon. The other gem was easily twice Garnet’s size and weight, but it didn’t matter. She had to fight or she was going to die. It was simple as that. 

_ It’s just like a dance. _

The two of them danced the dance of blows and blood, moving from one side of their battleground to the next. Garnet ducked and dodged and weaved out from under the Jasper’s assault. With every passing second, she grew more familiar with her body, how her muscles responded to her thoughts. The dance became easier.

“Why are you smiling? Stop it!” Garnet blocked a blow to her face with her gauntlets. The Jasper was getting frustrated now, her hair slicked with sweat, chest heaving. 

_ We can’t last forever like this.  _

_ I know.  _

“You don’t know what love is.” A punch slipped past her defense and drove the air from Garnet’s lungs, but she forced herself to stay on her feet, choking on air. She looked up towards Blue Diamond, who was sitting on the edge of her throne, hands clenched, mouth downturned. “You don’t know what love can be.” Garnet closed her eyes and felt the throbbing in her chest.

Her gloves began to glow again. This time, when the Jasper charged her, Garnet stuck out her hands and let loose a jet of electricity, a bright blinding light that shook the arena with a high-pitched whine and the smell of burning atmosphere. The Jasper was struck square in the chest, and when she went down, she didn’t get back up again. 

The crowd went silent. 

Garnet felt the world spin around her as she turned to Blue Diamond. “This is what hate brings you!” She shouted. Her body felt like it had been run over by a mountain. “Only pain. Only suffering. Why can’t you just let me be? I’m not hurting anyone! I just want...I just want to be me.” 

Slowly, slowly, the goddess rose from her throne, her blue robes rippling like waves on her skin. 

“Never.” The single word rang out across the still air. “For you insolence, I will kill you myself.” 

No. They had come so far! How could this be right? This couldn’t be right! But Blue Diamond was raising her hand, summoning some terrible power, and this time it would be something Garnet couldn’t survive. She didn’t understand. Why couldn’t she live? 

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t give up. Not now, not like this. Garnet sank into a fighting stance. Felt the power of her long limbs. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. 

And then a spear sprouted from Blue Diamond’s palm, pinning it to the wall behind her. The goddess screamed in agony. 

Garnet whipped around to where the weapon had come from: there, standing in the broken arena door, was--

_ The rebels.  _ She had heard stories about them, the powerful Pink Diamond and her savage Pearl. She had never even been sure if they were real. 

But here they were, weapons summoned, grins upon their faces. Pink Diamond looked at her--actually  _ looked _ at her--and smiled a soft smile. 

“We’ve been watching you, Garnet. We thought you could use some help.”

“Wha--”

“There’s no time to argue. Just come with us and I’ll explain everything later.” The Pink Diamond flowed forth across the stone, seemingly flying inches off the ground without any assistance. She held out her arms to Garnet. “Do you mind?” Garnet mutely shook her head, and then she was being lifted off her feet, swept into the air and soft arms of the Diamond. 

“Traitors!  _ Rebels! Seize them! _ ” Blue Diamond’s Pearl had pulled the spear from the goddess’ hand, and now she had drawn herself up in her full fury, trembling with anger. 

Pink Diamond looked down at Garnet, her face full of…

_ Is that kindness? Is that what it looks like?  _

“I’d say we’ve made my dear Blue Diamond angry.” Pink Diamond’s laugh was crystalline. “Shall we go?”

Garnet nodded, and a moment later they were whizzing across the battlefield. Gems were pouring out of the stands, summoning weapons and advancing in a horde. The renegade Pearl Garnet had heard so much about was fighting off three powerful gems at once in the arena gates. 

But despite everything, Garnet’s savior had a serene smile upon her face, as if she were sleeping in the sun. Like rebellion was as normal as could be. 

They reached the Pearl, and together they ran through the hole in the crowd she had cut for them. Out, out, out, Garnet was carried from her death and doom.

“Who are you?” She asked as they flew. The Pearl was sprinting beside them, keeping pace easily. 

Pink Diamond laughed again. “The rebellion, haven’t you heard? We were planning raiding the Sky Arena the day you were formed, but we were too slow. You were never out in the open until now. I hope you can forgive us.” 

Forgive them? Garnet didn’t understand. The rebellion had been waiting...to rescue  _ her _ ? Who would do something as crazy as that? Who would risk their lives for her?

_ Good people. That’s who.  _ Maybe that’s what people...were supposed to do. Garnet turned the thought over and over in her head. She had always been taught as Ruby and Sapphire to assist others because she had to, because it was her spot in the world. 

But if Blue Diamond was wrong about love, what else could she be wrong about?

The Pink Diamond launched herself off the floating court, and then they were falling, falling, falling. Garnet felt the breeze on her face, the chill of Earth’s atmosphere on her skin, the smell of roses. Maybe things could get better now. Maybe she could begin to heal. 

_ We made it out.  _

_ We did.  _

_ And you were so worried.  _

Garnet giggled to herself. Thinking as Ruby and Sapphire hurt her head, but she was just so...happy. Was that what that was? Such intense happiness deserved another name.

“Pink Diamond?”

“It’s Rose Quartz!” The larger gem giggled as they fell. Beside them, the Pearl her eyes closed and hands spread to let clouds whistle through her fingers. 

“Rose Quartz, what do you call...happiness?”

The gem looked down at Garnet. “Like what you’re feeling? Hm...I’d say ‘euphoria’. I love that word.”

“Euphoria.” Garnet tested it out, rolled it around in her mouth. “Euphoria,” she said again. Pi-Rose Quartz was right. It was a nice word. 

“You make me euphoric,” she whispered to herself. 

“You too.” 

  
  



End file.
